Quick notation question

[wsmith]

Hello everyone!

While doing theory excercises today, I came across some sort of harmonic notation that I am not familiar with. Please see the attached excercise.

 I would greatly appreciate any help with deciphering it as I am only familiar with extended Roman and the basic figured bass notation.

Thanks in advance!

[pianowolfi]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basso_continuo#Basso_continuo

[gsmile]

It's figured bass. The symbols indicate which inversions of the chords based on the bass note (hence "figured bass") to play. This link (posted by pianowolfi above) will help you understand what the symbols mean.
Once upon a time, piano music was written down with figured bass, then the rest of the chord was "improvised" by the player.

[wsmith]

Thanks pianowolfi and gsmile!

It does make sense now.

Greetings